3-Way stopcocks are widely used in the medical and sanitary field for the administration of different products, such as serum, nutrients and medications through an intravenous catheter. Patients with dementia, other co-existing pathologies and cardiovascular problems are those that need most this type of stopcock for simultaneous infusion of one or more intravenous medications.
Spanish utility patent U 2002 02098 (ES-U-1 052 679) describes a 3-way stopcock that is characterized by two secondary arms or routes that emerge from a nucleus forming orthogonal elbows in its trajectory.
As medications and nutrients administered to patients intravenously are solutions consisting fundamentally of solid micro-elements in liquid state, the micro-elements can become deposited on the walls of the arms or channels thus impairing adequate flow of liquids. Therefore, the presence of orthogonal elbows in the stopcock described in the previously-mentioned patent can present the difficult to eliminate problem of occlusion of the arms or channels. This problem has negative consequences on intravenous therapy because the medication that goes to the patient needs to be administered in a specific period of time.
Another problem presented by the previously described stopcock having orthogonal elbows is reduced flexibility. For example, for the situation where medical personnel need to manipulate the arms or channels, e.g., during changing of intravenous containers or bottles containing intravenous therapy products or to disconnect a secondary line from the main catheter, damage can occur to the principal arm connection with the intravenous catheter, thus affecting the supplying of these products. Because the principal arm is directly connected to the catheter inserted previously in the patient's vein, any manipulation on the secondary arms will significantly affect the intravenous connection, producing pressure leaks. Therefore, in view of this problem, it would be desirable to have a 3-way stopcock in which the secondary arms are flexible.